[WikiEN-l] overzealous image deletion?

[Steve Bennett]

On 12/5/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> Thats no different from saying if we dont have an article on Mr John
> C Popular Esquire why dont we just copy the one from the Encyclopaedia
> Brittanica until we get around to writing one. Yes it makes us look
> better
> but it doesnt belong to us. This copyright theft is "justified" as
> "fair use"
> because we allegedly dont steal too much from one place at a time, eg we
> only have pictures of all the Pokemon charcaters, so each one is fair
> use.

I've been assuming that the policy about not applying "fair use" for
these photographs was entirely of Wikipedia's design, and is not
really related to copyright law. You're suggesting that we're actually
breaking copyright law if we do use "fair use" for promotional
photographs instead of going out and taking a new photo. Does anyone
know either way?

> And if we had copied all the articles from EB and hadnt got sued, so you
> think we would be where we are today? People improve things where
> there are
> gaps, and stolen images are not gaps.

Can you steal a promotional image which some B grade hollywood star
desperately wants everyone to use at any opportunity? I certainly
agree with you about people filling gaps - I've taken quite a few
"gap-filler" photos myself - but taking good photos of celebrities is
pretty hard. Here's an example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jerry_Seinfeld_%281997%29.jpg

We're not even sure that this *is* a free image, and this is at the
better end of the scale of the free celebrity photos we have. And do
you think Seinfeld, his publicist, us, or anyone is really happy that
we have a crappy photo of him rather than a professionally executed
publicity shot? This is sort of the opposite of the victimless crime -
the beneficiary-less act of kindness.

Steve